Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/193

 SEWARD they openly confessed, and they looked upon the collision between them, which was then just revealing itself, and which we are now accus- tomed to deplore, with favor and hope. They knew that either the one or the other system must exclusively prevail. Unlike too many of those who in modem time invoke their authority, they had a choice between the two. They preferred the system of free labor, and they determined to organize the gov- ernment and so to direct its activity that that system should surely and certainly prevail. For this purpose, and no other, they based the whole structure of government broadly on the principle that all men are created equal, and therefore free — little dreaming that within the short period of one hundred years their descendants would bear to be told by any orator, however popular, that the utterance of that principle was merely a rhetorical rhapsody; or by any judge, however venerated, that it was attended by men- tal reservations which rendered it hypocritical and false. By the Ordinance of 1787 they dedicated all of the national domain not yet polluted by slavery to free labor immediately, thenceforth and for ever ; while by the new Con- stitution and laws they invited foreign free labor from all lands under the sun, and inter- dicted the importation of African slave labor, at all times, in all places, and under all circum- stances whatsoever. It is true that they neces- sarily and wisely modified this policy of freedom 183